I started on a high note in Bangkok. There was a lot to enjoy, even aside from the toilets. But overall, Thailand was the country that reminded us that all our travel experiences are emotionally rated on a highly relative scale: how well they meet or violate our expectations. Ideally, we’d dive in with no expectations, taking each new experience as it comes. But for us human creatures, that’s not usually as easy as it seems. Expectations are created and violated all the time. Our trekking in Nepal was exceptional as it far exceeded any expectations we had. Kayaking in Croatia left the opposite impression. Our experiences in Thailand were a mixed bag. Certain pieces were amazing. Others were supremely frustrating. So, in all honesty – though, I notice I feel somewhat nervous about stating this – we left feeling pretty lukewarm overall about visiting the country.
Trekking offers a great example of this perfect mix of amazing and frustrating experiences and was quite the experience worth sharing. We love trekking. And, we don’t say that will nilly. Scanning this blog, you’ll find a wealth of evidence that supports our love of throwing on packs and hitting the trails. So it only seems natural that we’d search out a trek in northern Thailand as well. We did not want to spend much time in the planning phase of this trek and so reached out to one of the hundreds of companies leading treks into the mountains to visit some of the native tribal villages in the area: a company with incredibly high TripAdvisor reviews, I’ll add. Just a single overnight: boat ride to the trailhead, hike to waterfall then village, fun night with a family staying in their home, morning hike to lookout point, then bamboo lunch by a river, hike out, and drive to hot springs before returning to our hostel. Sounds awesome, right? Well, most of it was. Most of it.
“Most of it” started in the evening, after the 12 mile run through an overgrown, hilly jungle in sweltering afternoon heat that our Himalayan acclimatized bodies were not at all ready for. You know, the trekking part. “Most of it” did not include that 4 hour stretch, much of which I spent on the brink of puking, crying, and falling all at the same time (actual incidences: two crying meltdowns, two falls, zero pukes).
Why were we running through the jungle? Excellent question. It turns out, when your 12 mile “trek” begins in the afternoon, because you are picked up from your hostel late morning then ushered into an extremely leisurely lunch, you, in fact, must run to make it to the village by dark.
Am I exaggerating? Only a smidge. Google uses an average human (U.S. human) walking speed on roads, not accounting for hills, of 3 miles per hour to predict how long it will take you to get somewhere walking. Walk that speed with no breaks, and you’ll reach 12 miles in 4 hours, exactly the amount of time we had until dark. Not a fast walk, seems pretty doable. Now, add a pack to your back, breaks for pictures (and dry heaving), steep hills, mud hopping, creek crossing, and a jungle-appropriate quantity of overgrowth… in 90+ degree heat. I think you’ll find, as we did, that in order to make those 12 miles in 4 hours, you’ll be running. I will add that our lovely British trekking mates seemed to have no problem with this pace, but I will also add that I am convinced (based on experience) that Europe breeds some sort of super-trekker species of human not appropriate for U.S.comparisons.
It wasn’t all doom and gloom, though. Amazing experiences following our “light jog” almost fully made up for the first few hours. So allow me, now, to share a few of our best moments from this overnight. These included gathering around the family’s open fire stove to learn about and dine on our delicious, home-cooked feast, tasting parts of a pig I think I probably won’t taste again (by choice), and participating in a wonderfully rousing night of English and Thai sing-a-longs, our voices rising in proportion to the growing stack of empty Thai moonshine bottles.
We slept comfortably under a tent of mosquito netting and woke early to hit the trail again. Thankfully, this trail led to an open fire bamboo cooked lunch that might have been one of the best meals we had on our, well, maybe of our entire travel experience. A campfire was started next to a babbling stream, and various lengths of large bamboo were cut to create small cups, pots, and plates.
Rice was steamed in bamboo. Eggs were poached in bamboo. Pork was roasted on bamboo skewers, and all other eats were tossed in the fire to roast, then mashed together in a bamboo bowl. We dined on mashed eggplant salad – so incredible we wrote down the recipe then and there – delectable bbq pork, and locally grown sticky rice… We enjoyed this best of meals lounging on banana leaves by the stream in a secluded gully of the jungle forest. It. Was. Awesome.
And then, as predicted, we ran home.
Stay tuned for elephants, cooking classes, and a glorious cycling adventure!